Kingdom of Knuffel

Oh, yeah. My favourite is probably when this random guy sat opposite me (I was already sitting there before he appeared) on a half-empty bus and demanded I smile more. At 8PM. After a whole day at school. I'm sorry, random guy invading my personal space, I'm tired. If you don't like my face, maybe sit somewhere else.

I can understand the sentiment of asking someone to smile since we inherently want other people to be happy (or I guess I'd like to think that some portion of the populous thinks that??). But it's irritating if it's not genuine or spoken with a shallow intention like it simply makes a person look prettier.

I don't like being told to smile more at work because I'm in food service. I don't have a good fake smile, but I smile to the customers I like or if someone makes me laugh. However, I don't think I've ever had random strangers ask me to smile. Mostly its just my family and I can just tell them to buzz off. *eye roll*

Yeah, I've never had a stranger telling me to smile lol But then again, I have the opposite of RBF haha Maybe because I've never had that experience, I don't think I'll mind it...? Or maybe I will.

Where I come from, especially when I was young, a girl could never complain or show any weakness; as a consequence we had to smile. It is not like someone has ever told me to, but it was a bit like an unwritten rule.

Thing is, I smile because sometimes I see that is pisses people off, and most of the time because when I smile I feel more positive about myself, and I get more energy to keep doing what I am doing.

I used to get this ALL the time! I have RBF as well so I developed my 'fake smile' (more of a grimace, really) to get people to leave me alone. I'd then follow it up with a 'stink eye'. I was usually left alone after that. I was also asked "Are you ok?" a lot because of my resting bitch face. Nothing was guaranteed to put me in a bad mood faster. Now I work with a bunch of fellow introverts (not as extreme as me, but still introverts) so no one bothers me much about it anymore.

I hear about it happening a lot, but I don't recall it ever happening to me. Although I don't leave the house much, and when I do, I am rarely alone.

Most women in my family, including an 18-month-old, have an RBF. It is just how we function and we can't help it.
I have noticed that it is mostly males who want females to smile. I got complaints at work because I don't smile that much. I find it hard to concentrate on doing my job and smiling at the same time because I am either overheating, drench in rain or carrying a heavy basket. (I don't have a front of house job so I don't see why I have to smile all the time.)

Yeah I've never quite understood the gender disparity in that encouragement. I could see the logic if it were more often men encouraged to smile (because smiling makes people seem less threatening, and men are more likely to be perceived as threatening, so smiling would mitigate that) but either way it just seems odd, that there is an imbalance.

I smiled at this nice older gentleman as he walked by and he said
"It's a cloudy day outside but your smile just brightened my day!"
I then told him he was a sexist piece of sh** and he shouldn't tell
women to smile.

Joke. I said "Thank you so much! That's sweet!" 'cause I'm not a bitter psycho.